Pakistan province gives $3 million to Taliban-linked school

FILE-- In this Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2011file photo, Sami-ul-Haq, center in grey turban, a Pakistani Islamist politician and head of the Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Haqqania, is surrounded by students as he leaves after delivering a lecture at his seminary in Akora Khatak, Pakistan. A Pakistani provincial government allocated $3 million to a Taliban-linked seminary in the region, along the border with Afghanistan, a local minister said Thursday. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed, File)
(The Associated Press)

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – A Pakistani provincial minister says his local government has allocated $3 million to a Taliban-linked seminary in the region, along the border with Afghanistan. Mushtaq Ghani said Thursday that the funds will be used to bring the seminary into Pakistan's mainstream educational system.

The hard-line religious school, Darul Uloom Haqqania, is located in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and is known as the alma mater of most of the Afghan Taliban leadership and its affiliated Haqqani militant network, which is branded a terrorist organization by the U.S.

The government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is run by the Tehrik-e-Insaf or Justice Party of Imran Khan, cricket-star-turned-politician who leads the opposition to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's government in Islamabad.

Khan justified the funding, saying seminary students who are marginalized will always remain more dangerous.